One Single Sound
by bionic4ever
Summary: Steve and Jaime may have to face one of life's toughest challenges. Special thanks to Julie.
1. Prologue

**One Single Sound**

Prologue

One single sound can sometimes change your life, alter your whole world. Jaime smiled happily as she put the finishing touches on a banana cream pie and listened to the laughter of her children playing together on the front lawn. She and Steve were so lucky, and they knew it. James and Lauren were almost ten, Jenna and Crystal had just turned four and Hannah...well, Hannah was six-going-on-thirty, but all five children somehow managed to play harmoniously together, with only slight, occasional squabbles. James was patiently teaching Hannah how to throw a Frisbee, while Lauren helped the youngest in chasing after the many mis-throws.

Steve came in the back door and moved stealthily toward the pie, dipping a finger into the filling before Jaime could stop him and receiving a swat on the hand with her spatula for his efforts. She re-smoothed the top as he tasted what he'd managed to swipe.

"Mmm-mm...what are my chances for getting a sample slice early?"

Jaime grinned. "Let's see...it's June. I'd say your chances are about equal to our getting a blizzard before nightfall."

"Damn." He leaned over to kiss her. "Kids outside?"

"Yes, and _I _am making dinner." Jaime twisted out of his arms before she was tempted to take him up on his unspoken suggestion. "You're more than welcome to help."

Giggles and peals of laughter bubbled up from the front yard, catching their attention, and their eyes met with all the love and pride of parenthood. Then, suddenly, Lauren screamed in raw terror, and they heard a gut-wrenching _**Squeeeal!**_, followed by an entire lifetime's worth of silence.

One single sound can sometimes change your life, alter your whole world.

- - - - - -


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Jaime refused to be denied a place in the ambulance, and rode to the hospital at their daughter's side. Steve stayed behind with the other four children until Mrs. Drake from next door arrived to care for them. It pained him to leave them while they were so distraught, but he knew his place was at his wife's side; Jaime needed him, and so did Lauren.

Steve found Jaime already in the ICU cubicle, her chair pulled up right beside the bed. Lauren's face was almost as white as the gauze that swathed her head. She was so still and silent that she barely seemed alive. Jaime was holding one small hand in both of her own. When Steve placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, she rose to her feet and buried her face in his chest, her entire body trembling from the intense effort it was taking not to cry.

"It's ok to cry, Sweetheart," he told her softly. "I've got you."

"No," Jaime whispered. "If she can hear us, I don't want her to hear that..." She and Steve clung to each other until the doctor appeared in the cubicle doorway. Anxiously, they joined him out in the hall.

"I wish I had better news for you," he began in a gentle but very grim voice. "The car that hit your daughter was traveling at a high rate of speed. She suffered a broken left arm and leg in the initial impact, and it appears she was thrown into the air." He hesitated, seeing Jaime's already-fragile emotional state, but Steve held her tightly and motioned for the doctor to continue. "I believe she may have landed on her head."

"Oh, my God," Jaime cried, collapsing in Steve's arms.

"We haven't found any fractures to her skull, but the blow was severe. The probability of brain damage is very high. I'm so sorry."

"Will she live?" Steve managed to choke out.

"I don't know. If she wakes up in the next 24 hours, the chances are much better, but if not...I just don't know."

- - - - - -

Just after midnight, Jim and Helen arrived from California to care for the children. Jaime and Steve remained together at their daughter's side until, first thing the next morning, she was wheeled – still unconscious – downstairs for more x-rays and tests.

Jaime stared in shock at the now-empty bed. "Steve, _what happened?"_ she asked, overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation.

"James said Crystal picked up the Frisbee and tried to throw it," he told her, very quietly. "Jenna ran after it, right out into the street, and Lauren..." he had to choke back his own emotions, "Lauren pushed her out of the way."

"What about the driver?" Jaime whispered.

"The car never stopped, Sweetheart." He smoothed her hair in another gesture of comfort, and felt her trembling body lean closer. "James got a plate number."

"He...did?"

"I gave it to Oscar. We'll catch the creep – I promise."

"What if the driver was someone out to hurt _us_?" Her mind reeled with the possibility.

"We should know something soon," he assured her.

"If this happened to Lauren because of us, because of what we do, I'm done. No – **we** are done."

"Jaime -"

"We'll take the kids and just disappear. Timbuktu, Siberia – I don't care where we have to go, as long as the kids are safe. We really should think about that anyway, you know -"

Steve put a gentle finger to her lips. He knew she was beyond exhaustion (so was he), and in no shape to make any kind of decision about the future. "Why don't we wait and see what Oscar has to say first?" he suggested in his most soothing voice.

As if on cue, Oscar appeared in the doorway, looking as though he hadn't slept any more than the Austins. He was just in time to hear the tail end of Jaime's diatribe:

"Well, whoever it is, when they find him...I'm gonna kill him!" Jaime sobbed. Huddled in Steve's arms and visibly shaking, she hardly looked threatening, but the pure animosity in her voice startled even the unflappable Oscar. He quickly decided his news should wait until he could get Steve alone, or until he could have Rudy standing by – with a sedative.

- - - - - -

Jaime and Steve sat with Lauren throughout the day and into the evening, wishing they could will some of their own physical strength into her tiny, battered body. When their emotions got to be too much to hold in, they took turns ducking into a room Rudy the staff had made available, across the hall, to shed tears of grief and fear for their daughter's future. There was no movement, no response from Lauren, throughout that longest of all nights.

Sometimes one single sound – or the lack of it – can tear your world to shreds.

- - - - - -


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"...A drunk driver?" Steve repeated.

"He had a .19 when we found him this morning," Oscar said.

"How do you know he was drunk yesterday?"

"When he found himself surrounded by Federal Agents instead of the police, he admitted everything. He claimed he didn't know he'd hit Lauren, but he brought up the subject; we didn't."

Steve nodded. "Thank you."

"How _is _Lauren?"

Steve's eyes clouded. "It's been almost 24 hours with no change. No response – nothing."

"We've got some of the best medical talent in the country here, Pal. She'll pull through."

"Oscar, she _has _to!"

"What about you and Jaime? How are you holding up?"

"I'm...ok," Steve said unconvincingly. "And Jaime...about like you'd expect."

"What about the kids?"

"Jaime's on the phone with them now. Jenna and Crystal don't really understand, but Hannah's been crying since yesterday. And James...they may not be identical, but he and Lauren are definitely twins."

Both men fell silent as Jaime (looking as though she might collapse at any second) joined them. Steve quickly helped her into a hallway chair.

"James wants to see his sister," she said sadly.

"What did you tell him?"

"I said he could, as soon as she...wakes up." Jaime took a deep, quivering breath. "Steve...Hannah asked me...if Lauren was gonna die."

- - - - - -

Rudy stopped at the hospital that night to check on Lauren's condition himself and also, at Oscar's request, to check on Lauren's parents.

"Have either one of you slept since yesterday?" their friend and doctor asked gently. He wasn't expecting an answer; the bags under Jaime and Steve's bloodshot eyes and the pallor of their faces said it all. "What about food; have you eaten?"

"I don't think I could," Jaime answered for both of them.

"How about some soup?" Rudy persisted. "That'd slide right down, and you won't be any good to Lauren – or each other – passed out on the floor..."

"Rudy, thank you," Jaime said softly, hugging him. "But...I just can't."

Rudy extended one arm to Steve, inviting him into a tight family-sized hug, then moved his own arms away to leave husband and wife in a comforting embrace. "I'll be back in the morning. Look out for each other, and please don't give up hope."

- - - - - -

When a second 24 hours went by without any response from Lauren, doctors started to lose the little bit of optimism they'd been able to retain and Jaime began to reconsider her decision.

"Steve," she began, very quietly, "maybe we _should _let James see her."

"Whatever your instinct says is best," Steve told her.

"I mean, she _is _his twin, and if...something happens..."

Steve opened his mouth to contradict her, to insist that everything would be alright, but they didn't know that anymore. Instead, he nodded sadly. He caressed his wife's face, wishing there was something – anything! - he could do to relieve her of the horrible pain that overwhelmed her, or to keep the tears from her eyes. "I'll call Mom and Dad."

"Have them bring all the kids – they need to see us, Steve. They need their parents, almost as much as Lauren does. We can talk to them in the room across the hall.. And I know Mom and dad want to visit Lauren."

Steve nodded again, and headed down to the offices to make the call.

- - - - - -

Steve took Crystal and Jenna onto his lap and Jaime held Hannah in a close bear hug, while James sat between both of his parents while Steve quietly gave them an age-appropriate explanation of Lauren's condition.

"Can I go see her, too?" Hannah asked.

"Not just yet, Baby," Jaime answered gently. As soon as she's a little stronger, you'll all get to see her -"

"But James is gonna get to -"

"James is her twin," Steve said firmly, "but while he's in there, you'll be the oldest Austin kid in the room..."

"I get to be in charge of Jenna and Crystal?" she exulted, tears momentarily forgotten.

"Within reason," Steve told her, smiling in spite of himself.

When Jim and Helen joined them, Jaime could see that Helen had dried her own tears before the children could see them. Setting Hannah on her feet, Jaime moved to give the older woman a hug.

"Ok, Buddy," Steve told his son, "your turn. Do you want Mom or me to go in there with you?"

"Uh-uh. I...just wanna see her for a few minutes, that's all." Steve walked him down to the door of the ICU cubicle, thankful that they'd bent the rules to allow this special visitor access to his sister. He wrapped an arm around his wife as she joined him, and they sank into two hallway chairs to wait.

"Do you think we should go in there?" Jaime ventured. "He's so young – they're both...so young."

"He knows we're out here. I think he needs this time with just the two of them."

A sound from inside the cubicle temporarily stopped their hearts before sending them racing: a nine-year-old female voice, weak but very clear - _"Mom!"_

Sometimes one single sound can set the world back on its axis, spinning properly again.

- - - - - -


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Jaime grabbed Steve's arm, her eyes wide. Yes, he'd heard it, too, and all the forces of nature combined couldn't have kept them from sailing into Lauren's cubicle. James was backing away from the bed, his eyes never leaving his sister. He jumped when he felt Steve's hand on his shoulder. "I – I didn't mean to...!"

Steve hugged his son close while Jaime hurried to Lauren's side. "Mom..." the plaintive voice from the bed called again. Lauren's eyes were open, but not quite focused, and Jaime leaned in where her daughter could see her. "I'm right here, Baby," she crooned. "Everything's ok now – you're gonna be just fine."

Steve grinned at Lauren's frightened twin as he led him down the hall to the rest of the family. "Son, they don't make hero medals big enough for everything you've done in the last two days. Mom and I are so proud of you! What did you say to her – how did this happen?"

"I was only joking..." James hedged, then blushed a little boy's shade of deep crimson. "I told her if she didn't get outta that bed, I would steal the heads off of all her Barbies."

Sometimes one single sound – a loving child's voice – can make your heart sing.

- - - - - -

The Austins had a family tradition – started the day Jaime and Steve brought James and Lauren home as newborns – of parading into the house as one noisy, happy group on all special occasions. Lauren's release from the hospital, after almost three weeks, definitely qualified as a major special occasion; Steve, Jaime and all of her siblings spent several days getting everything ready. Jaime and the girls baked two different cakes and decorated brownies while Steve and James hung a huge 'Welcome Home' banner over the front door and filled the house with streamers and balloons. Right before picking her up, everyone helped jazz up Lauren's wheelchair.

"I thought she'd get crutches," James said. "I think Lauren thought so, too."

"She can't use crutches with a broken arm, Buddy," Steve explained, "but the chair's only temporary. She'll be up and around again before you know it."

James flashed an evil grin that reminded Jaime of his father's. "It just means I get to push her around, right?"

Push her, he did – straight up the front sidewalk in the place of honor at the front end of the Austin parade line. The kids all played their hearts out on harmonicas and kazoos, with Jaime and Steve, arm-in-arm, bringing up the rear.

Sometimes one single sound – the music of children's happiness – is the only sound needed to make you happy, too.

END


End file.
